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ai bill of rights
'Godfather of AI' Demands Strict Regulations to Stop Technology From Wiping Out Humanity
"The only thing that can force those big companies to do more research on safety is government regulation."
Dec 28, 2024
Warning that the pace of development of artificial intelligence is "much faster" than he anticipated and is taking place in the absence of far-reaching regulations, the computer scientist often called the "Godfather of AI" on Friday said he believes chances are growing that AI could wipe out humanity.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's "Today" program, Geoffrey Hinton said there is a "10% to 20%" chance AI could lead to human extinction in the next three decades.
Previously Hinton had said he saw a 10% chance of that happening.
"We've never had to deal with things more intelligent than ourselves before," Hinton explained. "And how many examples do you know of a more intelligent thing being controlled by a less intelligent thing? There are very few examples. There's a mother and baby. Evolution put a lot of work into allowing the baby to control the mother, but that's about the only example I know of."
Hinton, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics this year for his research into machine learning and AI, left his job at Google last year, saying he wanted to be able to speak out more about the dangers of unregulated AI.
"Just leaving it to the profit motive of large companies is not going to be sufficient to make sure they develop it safely."
He has warned that AI chatbots could be used by authoritarian leaders to manipulate the public, and said last year that "the kind of intelligence we're developing is very different from the intelligence we have."
On Friday, Hinton said he is particularly worried that "the invisible hand" of the market will not keep humans safe from a technology that surpasses their intelligence, and called for strict regulations of AI.
"Just leaving it to the profit motive of large companies is not going to be sufficient to make sure they develop it safely," said Hinton.
More than 120 bills have been proposed in the U.S. Congress to regulate AI robocalls, the technology's role in national security, and other issues, while the Biden administration has taken some action to rein in AI development.
An executive order calling for "Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence" said that "harnessing AI for good and realizing its myriad benefits requires mitigating its substantial risks." President-elect Donald Trump is expected to rescind the order.
The White House Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights calls for safe and effective systems, algorithmic discrimination protections, data privacy, notice and explanation when AI is used, and the ability to opt out of automated systems.
But the European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act was a deemed a "failure" by rights advocates this year, after industry lobbying helped ensure the law included numerous loopholes and exemptions for law enforcement and migration authorities.
"The only thing that can force those big companies to do more research on safety," said Hinton on Friday, "is government regulation."
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Progressives Praise New US Guidelines for Government AI Use
"Today, the OMB's guidance takes us one step further down the path of facing a technology-rich future that begins to address its harms," said Maya Wiley.
Mar 28, 2024
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris announced on Thursday a Office of Management and Budget guidance regarding how the federal government will utilize new artificial intelligence tools going forward, and it received praise from some progressives.
The guidance focuses on how federal agencies can benefit from utilizing AI tools but also the risks involved in putting them to use.
"The order directed sweeping action to strengthen AI safety and security, protect Americans' privacy, advance equity and civil rights, stand up for consumers and workers, promote innovation and competition, advance American leadership around the world, and more," says a White House fact sheet.
At the first-ever Global AI Summit last year, I laid out our vision for a future where AI advances the public interest.
To help build that future, I am announcing our first government-wide policy to promote the safe, secure, and responsible use of AI. https://t.co/6NPXLWn8Oc
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) March 28, 2024
The guidance says all federal agencies will now have a senior leader in charge of the use of AI tools, agencies will have to publicly report how they're using AI, agencies will be required to create "concrete safeguards" to protect the rights of citizens, and more.
Damon T. Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, called it "a significant step to implement meaningful safeguards on the government's use of artificial intelligence."
Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said it's necessary to make sure technology "serves us," rather than "harms us," and it should "advance our democracy rather than disrupt it."
"Today, the OMB's guidance takes us one step further down the path of facing a technology-rich future that begins to address its harms," Wiley said. "The guidance puts rights-protecting principles of the White House's historic AI Bill of Rights into practice across agencies, and it is an important step in advancing civil rights protections in AI deployment at federal agencies. It extends existing civil rights protections, helping to bring them into the era of AI."
The Biden administration released an AI Bill of Rights blueprint in 2022, which is an outline for how new AI tools should be utilized and developed to protect consumers. It also secured a voluntary AI safeguard agreement with seven major AI developers in July of last year.
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'Only a First Step': Digital Rights Defenders Welcome Biden AI Order—But Say More Must Be Done
"As much as the White House can do on its own, those measures are no substitute for agency regulation and legislative action," said one leading consumer advocate.
Oct 30, 2023
While welcoming U.S. President Joe Biden's executive order aimed at setting standards for artificial intelligence safety and security, digital rights campaigners on Monday also stressed it's only a first step and that federal regulation and congressional action are needed if the directive is to be effective.
"AI is all around us," Biden said before signing the order. "To realize the promise of AI and avoid the risk, we need to govern this technology."
To that end, the president's executive order—which he says must be backed by congressional legislation—requires "developers of the most powerful AI systems" to inform the federal government of safety test results and other key data. The National Institute of Standards and Technology will also be tasked with drafting AI safety and security standards.
"It's hard to say that this document, on its own, represents much progress."
The order also aims to prevent AI from engineering dangerous biological materials "by developing strong new standards for biological synthesis screening," while directing the U.S. Department of Commerce to "develop guidance for content authentication and watermarking to clearly label AI-generated content," an effort to protect consumer from fraud and deception.
Caitlin Seeley George, campaigns and managing director at the advocacy group Fight for the Future, called Biden's order "a positive step."
"However, it's hard to say that this document, on its own, represents much progress," she asserted.
Seeley George continued:
Agencies like the [Federal Trade Commission] have already taken some action to rein in abuses of AI, and this executive order could supercharge such efforts, unlocking the federal government's ability to put critical guardrails in place to address harmful impacts of AI. But there's also the possibility that agencies do the bare minimum, a choice that would render this executive order toothless and waste another year of our lives while vulnerable people continue to lose housing and job opportunities, experience increased surveillance at school and in public, and be unjustly targeted by law enforcement, all due to biased and discriminatory AI.
"It's impossible to ignore the gaping hole in this order when it comes to law enforcement agencies' use of AI," said Seeley George. "Some of the most harmful uses of AI are currently being perpetrated by law enforcement, from predictive policing algorithms and pre-trial assessments to biometric surveillance systems like facial recognition."
Noting that AI systems used by police "deliver discriminatory outcomes, particularly for Black people and other people of color," Seeley George added that "we cannot stress enough that if the Biden administration fails to put real limits on how law enforcement uses AI, their effort will ultimately fail in its goal of addressing the biggest threats that AI poses to our civil rights."
Maria Langholz, director of communications at Demand Progress, said in a statement that the advocacy group applauds Biden "for his leadership in advancing the national conversation on comprehensive AI regulation."
Langholz continued:
Given the long history of Big Tech companies like Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon abusing their monopoly power in areas from cloud computing to worker surveillance, Americans should be deeply concerned about corporate consolidation of AI technologies. We have already seen the tech giants begin to sweep up small innovators, and we expect that this will continue in the absence of a major intervention.
"In the coming months, Demand Progress will work to ensure the Biden administration and Congress' emerging AI frameworks have teeth to meaningfully rein in Big Tech corporate consolidation, to thoughtfully monitor and restrain military and law enforcement applications, and to protect against undue surveillance and consumer privacy violations," she added.
At the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, president Robert Weissman said in a statement that "today's executive order is a vital step by the Biden administration to begin the long process of regulating rapidly advancing AI technology—but it's only a first step."
The order, Weissman continued, "builds on the White House's Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and the administration's important move last week to ensure its trade policy does not preempt AI and technology-related policymaking."
The White House said Monday that it will take additional action including,
- Providing "clear guidance to landlords, federal benefits programs, and federal contractors to keep AI algorithms from being used to exacerbate discrimination;"
- Addressing algorithmic discrimination "through training, technical assistance, and coordination between the Department of Justice and federal civil rights offices"; and
- Ensuring fairness in the criminal justice system "by developing best practices on the use of AI" through every stage of the law enforcement, sentencing, carceral, and post-incarceration process.
"As much as the White House can do on its own, those measures are no substitute for agency regulation and legislative action," Weissman added. "Preventing the foreseeable and unforeseeable threats from AI requires agencies and Congress take the baton from the White House and act now to shape the future of AI—rather than letting a handful of corporations determine our future, at potentially great peril."
Following Biden's signing of the executive order, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that "executive orders are limited, and the president and I agree we need legislation."
Schumer—who has hosted two recent AI forums—added that a bipartisan working group would meet with Biden Tuesday "to move forward on AI legislatively" with "urgency" and "humility."
"This is about the hardest thing I've attempted to undertake legislatively," he said.
The executive order comes during preparations for a global AI safety summit in the United Kingdom next month, ahead of which two dozen experts warned that policymakers must act now to prevent "societal-scale" damage from the technology.
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